I have just come back from Algiers.
The visa was a nightmare to obtain – we had to book a hotel not Airbnb, to prove financial security with six months’ worth of bank statements, there was the photocopying of every page in the passport – twice and it cost £80. In cash only. Fortunately, the Algerian Consulate turned out to be in Park Royal which is a 10 minute drive from my flat. Because I had to make quite a few visits before the visa was obtained!
And I had no idea what kind of welcome we – I was travelling with my trusty voyage companion and former journalist mate, Ruby Millington - would get when we got there. Not one of my 1,000 plus FB friends seemed to have been there and none of my close friends or family. It was a bit of punt into the unknown, to say the least. And one friend had warned that Algeria was one of the most dangerous places in the world to travel. Which I thought was bullshit but did slightly rattle me. However, there was also excitement.
Ruby and I went to Vietnam together in 2023 and it was very hard to get off the beaten track. And we tried. There were hordes of tourists – Asian as well as European – everywhere even up in the mountains on the border with China. We were keen to find somewhere less travelled. Little did we realise how right we were. Algiers – a beautiful Mediterranean port – had been near the top of Ruby’s ever-expanding list for years.
I am aware that my mother was cruising at my age, 72, and having a ball. It wasn’t about the travel really for her. It was about the dancing. She did all the ballroom dancing sessions and adored having the male dance hosts accompanying her across the floor. She was good at it. There were the stops in Rio etc but I think the ship activities were more her thing. She always came back giddy with it all. My dad died when she was 58. Cruising made her happy. She even had an affair with a 60 something dance host when she was in her 70s. She initially went with women friends but decided that going solo expanded her horizons!
I’ve always liked to think that I relish an adventure but my partner, Asanga, now 82 – who has had heart and hip problems although he still climbs – decided a few years ago that he no longer needed to travel and was simply content to explore the lush and rugged landscapes of North Wales where he lives. And over the last thirteen years, we travelled to Rajasthan, Indonesia, Morocco, Costa Rica and more. And he has always encouraged me to carry on without him if that’s what I want to do.
And I do. But going to Algiers reminded me of my old-fashioned pre-Air bnb travelling days where everything wasn’t so organised and predictable. When we arrived at about 8 30pm, there was a sultry and warm breeze around the airport. We were a bit anxious about having to change money. There were no ATMs and we had cash to change on the black market but we didn’t really know what we were doing.
This guy – who reminded me vaguely but enough of Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront – was insisting we should take a taxi with him and that it would be 15 dollars plus he could change cash for us. I looked at him and decided that he was okay. Ruby was not so sure. There was a long walk to his ‘taxi’ which meant we felt vulnerable, he drove like a maniac – not unusual in Algeria – but the palms were waving at us, there was a huge mosque whose minaret, forever witty Ruby, decided was a majoret! And of course, Algiers is a port so there was a long drive along water’s edge, flags flying and much grander buildings than we expected. They are Belle Epoque built by the French from the 1830s and they are very beautiful.
It felt like ages since I’d truly felt this ‘altered state’ of arrival in a land that I was encountering for the first time. It was magical and mysterious all at once.
The hotel – Afric Hotel – was near the casbah – the old city which was initially built by the Phoenicians but most of the surviving houses are from the 18th century Ottoman era – was brilliant. Basic but very friendly and helpful. They said – we booked twin beds back in January – that they only had a room with a double bed. Oh blimey.
This state of affairs is unimaginable in this era – these non-travelling- like-I-used-to-do days, where often my friends and I have separate rooms, never mind sharing a bed – but Ruby and I did it. And it was okay. We both slept. A miracle as it was also on the street side so very noisy with cars hooting and braking loudly. I am a very bad sleeper and I slept!
I mean it just goes to show me that I can adapt in ways that I thought I couldn’t. We changed rooms for twin beds the next day but there was shouting, banging on building sites and the space was very small. Somehow it was fun navigating the room between us. And the toilet which was in the middle and right next to both of us. Oh la la. Ruby made me laugh by being thrilled that our opened suitcases could be secreted tidily under the beds. It was her idea, she’s definitely innovative in these situations.
We even went out on the first evening and found an Algerian rock/rai band playing to hundreds of people in La Place de La Grande Poste. There were young men dancing and lots of families watching. It was connected to a Pan African Trade Fair that was taking place at the same time. We noted how safe we felt. There was, of course, no alcohol.
We didn’t see any other British tourists when we were there. That’s how unusual it is to go to Algeria for your holidays. Despite Condenast Traveller having just written it up as a groovy destination. There was Nigerian and Dutch business men staying in our hotel, plus British-Algerians who were visiting their families. And everywhere we went – Algerian women and men stopped us and said – Welcome to Algeria. Not only that, people would stop and direct to their cultural highlights. Mosques, museums, histories of the struggle for independence, the reason why a man with a sword on a horse charging forth featured in one of the squares. It was L’Emir-Adelkadr who resisted the French colonisers in the 1830s, he is celebrated. And one taxi driver pointed out The Milk Bar where female freedom fighter left a bomb in the war with the French.
A couple of my FB friends decided to ask – where are the women when it came to that evening dancing? Ruby and I felt that it was an inappropriate question because it seemed to imply we, European women, had a superior culture because women dance in public and was an indirect criticism of Muslim culture.
But the next day, we decided to eat in Le Roi De Sardines – yes fried gorgeous sardines, salad, hmissa* and melon – and amongst the many men eating, there were a couple of young women on their own. We asked them how their lives were. They were single and worked for the Department of Environment. They were 29 and 32. Both said they were content with their lives in Algiers. Would they have danced in the square last night? No, they wouldn’t, they said, because culturally it’s not acceptable and they accept their Muslim traditions. They danced at each other’s homes in private.
Of course, a 10 minute conversation in French, doesn’t prove anything. But from other conversations that we had with women – ones who were married and studying, for instance – we gleaned that they were not as ‘free’ as we are, whatever that really means, however neither is Algeria the repressive regime re women that Afghanistan is.
One evening, we visited the modernist 1970s white concrete L’Aurassi Hotel which has a roof terrace, cocktails and an international set of residents as well as no headscarves on any of the Algerian women. This hotel was built to symbolise a surging forth Algerian independent country and it has an impressive view over the port. Algiers does have a Marseille vibe to it.
Another day – it was 39 degrees – we took a yassir – their equivalent of uber – out to the legendary Roman ruins 70 km away at Tipaza. We had no idea how we would get back or if we would be able to. But in my newfound old travelling ways, we took a risk. The Spanish-speaking taxi driver was driving far too fast for me. And we almost had an accident at one point with a much slower car in front. I yelled in French that he was driving far too fast and Ruby trustily translated it into Spanish but I think he got the gist.
Oh just like the old days of hitching.
The ruins at Tipaza were incredible – the location and the state of them. The amphitheatres, the baths, the villas by the sea. Gorgeous. And a female guide who explained the Roman everyday living including an anchovy storehouse, and about the statues of Venus that had been taken from one of the temples by the French to the Louvre where it remains. But she had no idea who Camus was or about the monument to him there in the town where she grew up. Which was a bit strange but Camus has been cancelled because he wasn’t for independence. The only reference we found to him was a paella restaurant named after him!
We had a bit of a mishap with a mausoleum and found ourselves in Cherwell without a mission. However, we’d only just arrived and found ourselves chatting to a woman in a hijab – she was wearing black gloves and a mesh too – and her two daughters who were wearing hijabs but with big wavy summer hats that reminded me of the 70s. Ruby said she’d never talked to a woman in a full hijab and neither had I. The mother recommended a fish restaurant, we went. On the way, we spoke to a group of men making fishing nets for shrimp. One of them who was wearing sunglasses whipped out his phone and showed us a photo of himself in London recently because his daughter runs a rug shop in Chelsea.
This is the sort of travelling I love where the unexpected is paramount. And we have a lot more stories. Where my curiosity is forever piqued. Algeria re-invigorated all my desires to travel this way…
